BETA12: Clubhouse and the Church

All right, hey, we got the Beta Show episode 12 here with the Church Digital Podcast once again powered by Stadia Church Planting. We're going to talk about Stadia along the way here in a little bit, but really excited about some things we've got a great show coming up with you here.

We're going to talk about Clubhouse. It's this new platform. Maybe some people are calling it like the early Twitter coming on, and some really exciting things. I've been kicking the tires and we're bringing in somebody who's an expert, much more familiar with this platform here in a little bit.

But wanted to haul out a couple things here first off. Here at the Beta Show, we are answering your questions, your ministry questions. If you've got questions, we want to hear them. Text them to us at 484-324-8724. 484-324-8724. Ministry questions. We'll address them on a future episode here with the Beta Show.

And one thing I did want to plug: Stadia Church Planting. Hey, we are doing digital learning communities. 2021 does not have to suck. 2020 was pretty rough, right? 2021 we can turn the corner here. Churches like yours can learn how to thrive, grow, and multiply not only in physical space but in digital space as well. Learn how physical and digital can work together to achieve your church's mission and vision. That's the goal. Stadiachurcplanting.org. Digital learning communities are starting. We've had a bunch start already in January. We've got more ramping up here in February, so jump in there with that.

All right, so hey, here with the Beta Show, of course, we're bringing in Radiarmus, co-host of the Beta Show Church Digital Podcast and just general all-around nice guy, digital pastor at Christ Fellowship Miami. Great to have him here. Ray, any you got five seconds? Words of wisdom?

So glad that I'm in Clubhouse. Just glad to be in it. It's so exclusive, but it's exciting, and everybody loves talking about it. Can't wait to talk more about it here.

That was more than five seconds, but we'll call it a win.

Hey, anyway, we are bringing in DJ Chong into the conversation now. DJ is one of these pioneers of online ministry. Like, I think I first met him a decade ago when he was working with Leadership Network. We were over in Dallas doing a multi-site thing. But DJ has kind of been like the lurker of online ministry, kind of floating in the background, observing, helping where possible, spurring some of those innovations on. You may not know his name, but I promise you you've seen the fruit of his ministry, the fruit of his influence across churches, mega, giga churches across this country. So DJ, honestly, it is an honor to have you here on the Beta Show, kicking some tires here, talking about Clubhouse.

So hey, maybe even just open it up. What thoughts do you have? Tell us, hey, tell us something about you that nobody else knows. Let's put you on the spot right here.

Oh, wait, what's the deepest dark secret out there? But um, I'm honored to be here. Thank you for inviting me. And one of the amazing rooms on Clubhouse along that line, there's a room called the Vulnerability Room where people do share their deepest, darkest secrets. And people do, and tears are wept, and people's hearts are moved, and it's like a weekly show hosted by some model out in Florida who has dark secrets. So it can be a very powerful, vulnerable place very rapidly with the room with strangers.

Wow, wow. So let's kick off a conversation about Clubhouse and the church right there off of that. That was, I don't know that I'm ready. I don't know that I'm man enough to walk into that room. But really, Clubhouse is super exclusive. It's hard to get into. What is this thing actually doing? Is it worthwhile? Should our churches really be interested in this type of thing? What makes it different from Zoom or any of the other kind of communication platforms? These are the questions that we're getting. And so if you've got questions, go ahead and throw them in the chat, whatever, so that we can engage and we'll put them up.

Hey, Brad Henson here is saying what's up, fellas. Brad was one of these guys I think that we saw recently in a Clubhouse. But let's start to unpack here a little bit. What Clubhouse is and should the church be involved in it. So DJ, you're the expert in context of Clubhouse. Ray and I have just kind of maybe toyed with it a little bit. Tell us here, what is Clubhouse? Put a definition on this for us.

Yeah, Clubhouse is a new iOS-only app, invite-only, that's a drop-in audio chat. So that's the way they tagline it. And it has been a phenomenal app that just launched last April, invite-only, starting with BIPOC, the Black, Indigenous, People of Color. And so it's got an ethos of creatives and African-American and tech and music and sports. That's the ethos in terms of the gravity and the momentum of the rooms that have been cultivated there. And along with that, those that would be of interest to church leaders like ourselves is the Black Church has found a place and a voice to connect with their community online, and it's really taken off.

Um, to the degree, give you a quick number. I know there's some numbers people out there. Two million active users weekly. Wow. Is the latest metric. Their user base is somewhere between three to five million now. And the average duration of users is 90 minutes. Not 90 seconds. 90 minutes. So there is long, heavy engagement for people connecting with each other through voice. And I'll quote um Jeremy Alyang, who's one of the researchers up in Silicon Valley, and he describes this as a leading social. The frontier of social media is audio chat because it's the Goldilocks phenomenon. It's in that perfect place between text is too little and video is too much. But audio gives you that human connection while we're still isolated, gives you that social space, and people are using it in all kinds of creative ways.

That's amazing, DJ. Um, talk a little bit more about that because this it does allow for a little bit more vulnerability. It takes you a little bit more out of the anonymity of just talking, like just tweeting at somebody or whatever else. But it also gives kind of a hint that you're more connected with some of these like higher-level individuals. Like I see people like Elon Musk on here or different things. And so people feel like, oh, this, because it feels exclusive and because I've got this audio access now, it's almost gives you the illusion like I'm in a room talking to him.

Well, you are. The dynamic of a room on Clubhouse is that it equalizes, democratizes everyone's voice. You still do have a mechanism in terms of who's on stage and who can speak versus who's in the audience. So it's not a shouting match. Usually the moderators are pretty good at managing the room dynamic. And you can run it just like you do here on Beta Show, where you have three people talk on stage and then you open up Q&A the last half of the time. It's certainly a legitimate way to use Clubhouse. But it's audio-only, so what that allows people to do is they don't have to look at the screen. They can actually be multitasking and folding the laundry while they listen in. And so that adds more engagement and more opportunity. People engage. And then there's people that open smaller rooms where everybody gets a chance to share their story for 15 and 30 minutes each, and people wait in line for hours. I've seen rooms go for 24 hours, and people are just really quote-unquote addicted to this thing because it's so engaging in a different way.

And um, there's people that might use it like a conference call. Remember that technology where people would just dial in by phone? But I think what's magical about this one is it just takes two taps to get into a call instead of dialing 20 digits. And so churches are starting to use it for Bible study and prayer groups, and that's a very simple, easy-to-understand way of how we can connect on a technology that's pretty easy to use if you're on iPhone.

Yeah, and that's interesting. iPhone. Have they said anything about Android? Is this just like hate the Google platform crowd? Like, why hasn't it ported over? Is that even on the roadmap? Does anybody know?

It is on the roadmap. It's coming in Q1. So that gives them until the end of March before they roll out or before they start rolling some invites and beta to Android. It's an entirely different thing to develop on iOS and Android. So it's just in terms of work you need to start with one before you can get to two.

Awesome. Hey, it would, so we did this, at least I did this on Monday. I started a room. Um, I started a room, and just this is my experience. So I opened it up. Hey, let's talk about digital church Q&A, something like that. Created the room in the platform, just had my phone on, put my earbuds to the phone. I was working at my desk, and like nobody came in the room. And so that was kind of weird. Maybe like 15, 20 minutes, nobody was coming around. I didn't know what to expect. Um, and so I put out on some social media channels and some groups, hey, I'm testing out Clubhouse. I'm hanging out here in the room. If nobody wants to come over, you know, come over. Maybe posted three, four, or five different things. Um, I think DJ actually, I think you're probably the first person to come on into the room. And so you and I were chit-chatting for like a minute until two or three other people came along. And then two or three others. And I want to drop names, but I'm looking at the people in here, and I'm like, okay, I know that person. I know that person. I know who that person is. I've never actually like met that person before. Um, and then so we're all talking. And as we're talking, um, because it was we were chit-chatting, I didn't want to be like, yo, DJ and I are talking and the rest of you are like in the audience. So I'm automatically clearing anybody who comes in the room to the place where they can speak because I was trying to create more of a dialogue, less of kind of like an onstage interview. Um, and so there was one guy I didn't really know. And so I didn't bring him up to that level. His bio wasn't like really strong Christian, but he had like 1,900 followers in the platform, like a huge amount of followers. And so somebody made a comment, oh, hey, bring this guy up into the platform so he can share too. So I bring that guy up so that he is on the platform where he can speak like the rest of us. And as God is my witness, the room blew up five seconds later. Um, you know, this individual is a well-known pastor, is very respectable in the African-American community. All of a sudden there's 50, 60, 70 people in this room listening. And this guy's not talking, but it was like you could see the algorithm work to the second. As soon as I brought this guy in, the room went viral. And now there's all of these people that are wanting to dialogue through it. And so now, um, it's I found myself realizing, hey, I can't like stage these guys anymore. Like I've got so many people in here. We are gonna have to turn this into something. And uh, the funny thing was I had to leave. Like I was on for an hour, and then my time was up. I had something else. So I handed it off to somebody else who's in the room. Who half an hour later handed it over to somebody else. That room went two hours plus. What started off as just a mere experiment, 50, 60 people throughout the entire time. And what I thought, man, that's obscure. Like that's really cool to see that happen. But that doesn't happen all the time as I talk more and more with like people in Clubhouse. It's yeah, that's typical. The two hour, the passing the baton, the just all of that. And that's so cool to see, DJ. Does that line up with some of your experience?

Yeah, that's a common experience. But there's a whole range of experiences. So this past Sunday, Elon Musk had a pre-announced...

Clubhouse room which overflowed two or three or four times over because each room only allows five thousand people. So they had overflow rooms with varying degrees of audio fidelity because they're basically just taking the iPhone and using another iPhone to broadcast into these overflows. And then YouTube had a couple thousand people too.

So you can have a well-known person that draws thousands of people and then they can just do a Q&A. They ask some silly questions and they have some serious questions and it just adds that level of intimacy. Hey, you're talking, you're listening to some people talk with Elon Musk and you submit your questions. And so that accessibility and that immediacy makes it, it brings that proximity even closer than just a Q&A session on a live stream. Live session gives you a similar dynamic, but the audio-only portion gives you that feeling of more closeness. I think that's the main difference. Plus it's audio, so it's more accessible while you're doing other things than just the live stream.

And then there's small rooms that are under five people and there's many closed rooms. So I don't see those as much, but they're out there. And right now it's an open platform. People can make it a big deal. I think there was a musical that they did, like a couple months back. And so there's audio experiences that the pioneers are actually really creating on Clubhouse. Wait, somebody created a licensing experience in Clubhouse? Yes. And there's also one called Cotton Club where there's a dress code and they have a vibe and an open mic and something else. And so there's all kinds of audio experiences that are interesting, cultivated and coming up because this is like a blank slate and people are bringing their creativity and really using it to connect people to people.

I'm actually intrigued. I want to experience like the Lion King, I guess, where you're recording audio, we're playing back the, like, is it multiple iPhones, multiple people singing? Because I mean, just tape playing a tape would be too easy. Like, there has to be some ingenuity that I wasn't there. I wasn't there. And the other thing about Clubhouse is it's not recorded. So the FOMO really triggers a lot of attentiveness. Hey, I want to get in on something.

Yeah, a part of me was, I actually when I was on the platform, even with what we do here at the Beta Show, I like, this is what I wanted the Beta Show to be like. We've got people like Brad who make comments through there and the views on this are awesome at, you know, and I can see the number of people are watching this live right now. But I've got eyes that are watching the screen that are hearing this conversation, but I'm more interested in saying, hey, what questions do you have? Like, I don't want to be the guy being the expert here, nor do I want to bring in others into the conversation. I want to address the, I want to hear from churches. I want to hear from people that are on the front lines. And to me, this is the first time that I really felt like a platform was able to deliver that.

Yeah, there's a lot of people that don't have access. They haven't gotten those invites. They don't have access to the platform yet. But potentially they're within reach and you can get a room together at a certain time and let there be dialogue. And because it's audio only, it's more passive listening where I can engage at certain times or I can be working and do other things without feeling the pressure of staring at that webcam for the entire time. And it just felt very at home kind of being in that environment, listening to people, kind of facilitating some conversations and helping people through that scenario. I just love the feel of it.

Yeah, so let's move a bit towards how churches can be using this. So I know as we've all endured and are persevering through the pandemic and quarantine that many churches are using Zoom to foster Bible study, small group worship experiences and have some even fellowship time and playing games. And so if you want to just begin bringing together a small group that wants to experiment and try new ways of online fellowship, you can substitute and use a Zoom room with the audio portion. So what I mean by that is, and you've had enough Zoom rooms that you realize that maybe only a third of the people are comfortable turning on their camera, but two-thirds of the people would prefer to stay off camera. So imagine a Zoom face camera and then you direct it by audio. So you as the moderator, at least set the example and have everybody be audio and create a pseudo-Clubhouse experience that's available to all. So they don't have to have iOS. They do need a computer that's connected to the internet and use Zoom and create that audio experience. And cue people up on, hey, we're gonna take some questions. Who's first? And you can call on names and people can go up often on mute. So you can simulate a Clubhouse experience now in preparation of how you might use Clubhouse or how you might use Zoom differently.

Now, one of the points that one of the historical points that's informed me is talking with one of the vendors that does a free conference call service. Back in the day when we're phone only, this decade, well over a decade ago, one of the biggest customers on these conference call lines were churches. So churches have been pioneers in the past using conference call technology to convene people between Sundays, between weekends, to do Bible studies and prayers and fellowship. And so there's no reason that in the digital world where we have more platforms and more accessibility that churches could also do that, whether it's on Zoom or on Clubhouse.

Really interesting. I've not experienced the churches doing that, but you're pulling data further from me. So, hey, we got Brad Henson chiming in again. As a pastor in rural areas where video quality is often bad due to bandwidth limitations, the idea of audio only is exciting. And Ray, like, I've, Ray, help me here. Um, there was a church we had a conversation with in the past couple weeks. Um, I don't remember who it was, but they made the comment that they had hundreds of people that would show up for a seven-thirty prayer meeting every day, right? Do you remember who that was?

No, I can't, right for the life of me, I can't remember who that was. But this kind of thing obviously sets up tremendous potential for that kind of meeting to continue to occur, especially since, you know, it's prayer, it's all audio. And it's funny because, you know, Brad brought up a good point that I remember just a lot of seminary students talking through, even ten years ago, like as church online was kind of a fledgling thing, where they talked about reaching out to people in different areas where internet isn't readily available. But they've got a lot of shut-ins at home that they can't get to the building either. Obviously, COVID opened up all of our eyes to a lot of this stuff. And so DJ, continue to talk through just some of the different ways that churches could leverage this kind of thing, you know, to reach out to some of those folks who can't, even as we reopen, can't get to a building.

Yeah, the telephone is still much more accessible than the internet. And even as many of us are using Zoom, we see that well-known people don't have the best internet sometimes. It's stunning. And I had internet out just last week. And so we don't have that reliability with internet the way we have with phones. And so phones are still the backbone that we might have missed the opportunity. Hey, let's use the telephone in some ways as a backup to connect with people because that is still the, I think, the primary role that church can offer to serve their people and their community is that social and spiritual aspect. And so using Clubhouse, using Zoom, using social media, that's, I'll contrast it this way. Using social media is asynchronous, meaning it's not real time. These little sound bites and that might be good for a flash in the pan, a little inspiration, but static. Whereas if you use Zoom and you use something like Clubhouse, it's real-time interaction. And that real-time interaction brings intimacy, engagement, and mutual edification and all the good things that come out of that. And so that's the opportunity. And you create space for it by going from the known to the unknown. So the known, as I've mentioned, Bible study, Q&A, small groups, support groups, prayer times, those would be examples of, okay, here's another platform that may be easier to use with some of your people. Let's adapt those onto this platform and increase the engagement.

On the frontier, Clubhouse is such an open space with, like I said earlier, two million active users. Tremendous opportunity for outreach. Answer the questions that people have and the topics they want to talk about. And as they get to know you, they'll see that you have more in how you're living life than the average person that doesn't have Christ. And so the frontier is very much outreach. As we all are stuck at home, but this opens the door for us to be connecting with people outside of the church.

That's true. The potential for the Q&A portion to me is just one of the most amazing things. I remember during the summer of 2020 when everything was going on with racial injustice in our country and all the different things, friends of mine at Transformation Church from the Carolinas, Derwyn Gray, pastor there, led a conversation with the chief of police in his area and actually created a great interaction. But if they would have done that, but now you create potential for a possible Q&A with people to then address either them, like as the pastor, or, hey, as the lead, you know, chiefs of police in our area, like, how do you see things? To me, that's just content that's just too irresistible that even somebody who's not a Christian would want to engage in. They'd want to dive in. What are other opportunities that people might want to engage in this kind of thing, DJ, that past might be a little bit scary for pastors because, like, whoa, live Q&A? But the potential outweighs the risk, right?

The reward always outweighs the risk. Well, okay, if you want to push it out, when you lose control of content, but you facilitate healthy conversation, that's kind of the next step beyond Q&A. And what I mean by that is there's many Clubhouse rooms where people share their own stories and share their own perspectives. It's a very human thing to do. But all of us carry a story. And for those of us who are in Christ, that story has been intercepted by Christ and he's transforming it, redeeming it in powerful ways. But yet when you're in a room of people, both Christians and non-Christians, and they're sharing each other's stories, you grow in your empathy and understanding and you expand your understanding of God and the world. And God will open doors for you to grow relationships that can turn into spiritual conversations as well as coming to Christ. It's a very non-threatening way for people to experience a conversation with Christians instead of going to church or being set up where they have to confront or be confronted by Christian content or apologetics. Hey, let me get to know you first and know your story and vice versa, and then see what happens on that next conversation.

I think that's the new apologetics for the twenty-first century. I can say that way. It's got to be more conversational rather than presentational. And I would love to see more church leaders just hanging out on Reddit, on Clubhouse, and connect with people as a person rather than as an authority figure. And that would be the frontier because that's what those.

Platforms are designed to do it's an equalized playing field and so to meet them where they are to be the missionary and to be the light in that space we're going to shine because Christ is in us and so there's no fear for us to go with the love of Christ into these new spaces.

Yeah, it's better. I mean, we talk about this a lot. Better to ask questions than make statements. Dave Adamson, we need to use more question marks than periods. So kind of building on that to use this platform to engage with people to build those relationships. It's interesting, Brad Henson. Charming. And once again, it could be relational apologetics as you discuss reasons why people doubt their faith. I mean, honestly, Ray, and you're from a mega multi-site environment, very kind of centralized in leadership. For me, this is the platform of the campus pastor. This is where, man, create rooms like these. You're not preaching, but you're trying to figure out ways to connect with people. I see this as an opportunity to connect with people like that to build those relationships. You know, jokingly I said on social media this week, hey, we can't be campus pastors anymore. It's time to be a community pastor. Let's go to them. And I think this is an opportunity to take that step towards the people in a digital format and start to really engage with and engage isn't let me preach this forty-minute sermon on the platform. Engage is let me ask a couple questions and listen as people talk and through that relationship building start to get to the point of sharing and pointing towards Christ. So I just there's so much I love with this platform and I'm usually the guy that geeks out on new technology but this one, this really has potential I think to help churches engage in new ways. So what else are we missing here? We want to wrap up but as we're landing the plane, DJ, closing thoughts on the platform wins, opportunities. What else should we be considering?

Yeah, right now it's just huge opportunities. We're just on the brink of discovering what the wins are but it's going to take time for us to get there. It's going to take an investment of time for church leaders to be in those spaces with average people and not come as an authority figure and not put on their collar but show our humanity. And I think for church leaders that's probably going to be the first hardest question: how much time is this going to take? And so if the average person on Clubhouse, two million active users, average time is ninety minutes, if you're able to commit an hour weekly to visiting some Clubhouse rooms and you don't have to do it at random, pick the ones that have a lot of people and people that you know and just begin getting into the practice of conversation, that's going to be the growth path for us to become better ministers that shine for Jesus in the Clubhouse environment.

Yeah, Ray, what are you thinking as we're landing the plane here?

Wow, there's you know, when we talk about this technology and there's just so much potential to connect, there's so much potential for people to feel like they're part of something and for people to feel like they have a voice, which I think is one of the more significant parts of social media, right? Like the fact that you feel like you have more access to people and especially right now, greater than ever with Clubhouse, you really do. You know, kind of like what DJ alluded to earlier, like hey, we were in the room with Elon Musk, like you did have an opportunity to kind of speak and be heard and to have that kind of thing work out for you, which is wonderful. And how much more do we need that in church in 2020? Whereas more and more, you know, like DJ you said it perfectly, about pastors need to step back from being authority figures and need to be more and more community driven. Whereas a lot of people kind of shied away and felt like, man, that's the guy on the stage, you know, I need somebody to connect with a little bit more. Now they have more and more of a capability of doing that. And I actually think that a lot of pastors want to be able to connect with people. They just don't know what's the right way for all of this to happen. And so Clubhouse could help facilitate the right kind of conversations if pastors will be brave enough to dive right into it, right? To embrace the hey, we don't know where this is going to go but we're going to take a shot and we're going to go out there and we're going to try and reach people for Jesus or even we're going to try and connect with some of our own people who are on the platform. There's just a lot of potential for this and for real engaging, real-time conversation, which is awesome.

Yeah, amen. Well, well said there. Hey, Power Church, the power is no longer in organizations and we can have the Reddit conversation later but for me the undergirding of that is it's not in these organizations, it's not in the corporations. The power is now in individuals. And when I look at Clubhouse, I see the opportunity to empower individuals to have conversations in an environment where people will listen. And so even as we talk about disciple making and what that looks like, multiplication in context of your church, my opinion is this platform, Clubhouse, is ripe for those type of relationships and that type of interaction. So church, equip your people to go and get involved on platforms like this. And I'll tell you what, I opened up the platform this morning and the nice people at Clubhouse gave me four more invites than I had yesterday. So I will give away three invites to three people and do Clubhouse. You know how to reach me, social media, whatever. 484-324-8724. You can text me directly. The first three people to kind of bump me, I will connect you into Clubhouse and give you access. Beyond that, sorry. There's another wave hopefully coming soon. Or maybe Ray, Ray will give you. Ray, I'm not putting you on the spot. We'll get it. I'll throw my invite out there.

Yeah, sure. You know, my invite sponsored by Stadia Church Planning. I want to thank you, Stadia, here for this wonderful Clubhouse invite. So there you go. Always. Thank you very much to the Stadia people. So we're going to wrap right here. For Ray, for DJ, this is Jeff with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planting. My family thanks for joining us here on the Beta Show and we'll see you next time, y'all. Good day.